The site, owned by Transport for London (TfL) was located at the end of a row of two-storey Victorian terraced houses. The landowner sought to develop the site and to maximise the development footprint. The ambition could be curtailed by the constraints of the existing scale of the street and of daylighting amenity to neighbours.

We undertook a daylighting analysis with our colleagues from Mach Group in order to determine how to achieve the most developable floorspace on the land without adversely affecting views to the sky and daylight and sunlight of neighbouring homes.

We determined that if we cut the building back at the top floor and replaced inset balconies with open balconies that we could achieve the maximum developable area without neighbouring amenity dropping below BRE guidelines for daylight/sunlight and vertical sky component.

London Borough of Tower Hamlets supported our strategy and approved the Planning Application with a delegated decision.

The consented application grants permission for a five-storey building adjacent to two-storey Victorian terrace and nine apartments on this formerly vacant land.